Harry Potter and the Scepter of Fury
by Kevin3
Summary: Book 1 of a series rewrite. It's Harry's first year, and he quickly finds himself overwhelmed and in the middle of the plot that seems to be attracting some rather odd characters, all centered around a scepter that was until recently thought a legend.
1. Chapter 1

Ok, I hope you'll indulge me a bit before I start the story. It's been awhile, a little over two years, since I've written on I've really missed it, to tell the truth, and decided I wanted to get back into it. If you'd like, I have a decent number of stories written post OotP as well as a slew of parodies. If you like my writing, you'd probably like the previous 5-6-7-sequel (Two Draughts, Possessions of Voldemort, Obsidian Tome, Sphere of Madness) and the second book 5 story (Legion of the Shadow)

Ok... enough plugging. Anyway, this isn't quite the usual HP fanfic. Most of the ones I've seen on usually fall in two categories: A finish for the current canon, or AU fics with some sole difference (such as 'What if Harry was in Slytherin' or 'What if Voldemort never attacked the Potters')

I don't want to use AU to describe what I'm writing, even though it's technically true. It's more like a different version how the books could have gone if events had unfolded differently - a rewrite from page one of book one, not just a single major change. I guess all I can ask is that you keep an open mind :-)

Oh, and I'm going to be shooting for adding a chapter every week, but I'm not promising anything. Also, I'm a bit unfamiliar with the ratings system, so if anyone notices writing that goes beyond the K+ rating, please tell me.

Disclaimer: JK's Lawyers have insisted that I actually do not own Harry Potter. Jury's still out on any of the Weasleys, but I'm not holding my breath.

**Harry Potter and the Scepter of Fury**

Chapter 1: The Most Unlikely Visitor

Harry Potter was by no means an ordinary boy. Never had been, and the Dursleys were quite content to believe he never would be. Harry didn't know which relative he disliked most fervently. Maybe it was Dudley, his bulbously obese cousin that elevated tormenting Harry to something approaching a sport. Perhaps it was his aunt, whose naying voice cut straight through flesh to rattle the bone in her displeasure. At the moment, though, it was definitely Uncle Vernon, who looked like a larger and redder version of his cousin.

"Boy, get the dinner out of the oven!"

Harry blew out an exasperated breath; his uncle had been issuing imperious orders to him all day. Harry's fingertips had had barely touched the handle of the oven when Vernon's voice carried from the living room once again.

"You watered the flowers like your aunt asked, right?"

Harry reached for the oven mitts as he realized that he'd forgotten about the flowers. Seeming to hear the second of hesitation, Vernon's voice raised a bit, "You did water them, didn't you, boy?"

"No Uncle Vernon," Harry replied as he pulled the large dish from the oven rack, "But I'll get to them in just a ..."

His reply was cut short by the ring of the doorbell. Quickly setting dinner from the oven on the counter to cool, he headed off towards the door, already knowing that Vernon would ask him to get it.

Harry opened the door, and his mouth slowly fell in utter shock and amazement.

"Who is it?" Vernon called from the adjoining room, albeitly in a more polite and civil tone than before; Harry was usually treated the slightest bit better when guests were around.

Harry couldn't swallow, let alone reply to his uncle. As it was, he was staring with wide disbelieving eyes at the man standing upon the mat outside the front door. He looked horribly disfigured, as if accident after accident had befouled him through life, leaving nearly every inch of skin decorated with an ancient scar. Yet nothing compared to his left eye, which was a lidless neon blue. In addition to looking quite unnatural, the eye didn't seem bothered to even look the same direction as his other comparatively normal eye.

"Harry Potter?" the man growled, and Harry involuntarily nodded, still staring with a mouth slightly agape.

The mere mention of Harry's name brought Vernon into the room faster than anything else could, whether due to fear or hope. "Hello sir," Vernon said in an voice that started brusque but ended in a high pitch squeak as he saw the man's unearthly appearance.

Suddenly, the man moved a hand into his cloak and drew it back holding an eyedropper. Before Harry could do anything, the man roughly pinned him against the entry frame, and after forcing his mouth open, dropped three drops of a clear liquid down his throat. Harry's head swam a bit, but the pressure upon his chest from the man's arm didn't lessen.

"Are you Harry Potter?" the man asked in a concise and clear tone, as if he was making sure he wasn't misunderstood.

"Yes," Harry replied without realizing, his ribcage hurting quite a bit from the man pinning him against the door frame.

"Good. Let's go inside. Never safe to dwell outside too long," the man said, and quickly half-shoved them inside to shut the door crisply behind him.

"Now, wait a minute..." Vernon said angrily, clearly not expecting nor welcoming such a strange visitor. "What makes you think you can just barge in here!" As Harry resisted rubbing his aching upper body, he couldn't help but notice that Vernon hadn't said a word about the man roughing his nephew up. Harry was more than inclined to believe his uncle wasn't going to lose any sleep over something so trivial.

"I am Alastor Moody," the man replied. "And don't raise your voice again... people will notice." Moody, however, did not see fit to explain just exactly what he was worried about, and instead pulled what looked like a small polished stick from his pocket. After a quick wave, Harry found his entire body freezing up to the point he couldn't even move his mouth to protest. Vernon seemed to be struck as well, considering he wasn't the sort to be talked down to, especially in his own house. Even more amazingly, Harry suddenly found himself floating through the air, frozen stiffly in place, to rest atop the recliner while the same odd force carried his uncle over to sit on the couch.

"Good," Alastor said, his blue eye looking around as if he expected to be accosted at any second. "Harry, I want to make this quick, before anybody notices we're here. You're a wizard, and I'm here to pick you up to take you to your new magical school. Dumbledore sent me."

Harry suddenly found his mouth under his control again, and he immediately used it.

"What!"

"You're a wizard."

"Er... no, I'm not," Harry replied. This went beyond an unusual day - what explanation could there be any of this, besides some sort of highly unusual dream? Though Harry had to admit, it had been a rather hot day out; perhaps he was suffering from a heat-induced delusion of some sort?

"Of course you are," Moody said dismissively. Harry immediately grew afraid as Moody once again pointed his wand at the recliner he was sitting on. A small fireball emerged from the wand and sailed hastily forward, igniting the cloth upholstery on the seat. Once again, Harry found himself unable to speak or move, and could only watch mute in growing panic and horror as the flames started to consume the chair beneath him. He could hear his heart beating wildly in his ears as his muscles tensed futilely in fright.

However, the flames gave his skin the barest lick before fading. Fright turning to confusion, Harry looked at the chair beneath him. It was indeed being consumed by the fire, but whenever it reached up to him it vanished as if it had touched a bit of water. Oddly enough, all that the fire seemed to be doing to him was giving him a faint tickling sensation.

"There," Moody said with a note of satisfaction, clearly expecting the burning of the chair to prove something profound. "Muggles - non-wizards I mean - they usually can't magically save themselves from fire now, can they?"

"But... wha..." Harry said, completely at a loss. Vernon said nothing, which obviously meant his lips were still frozen. By the look on his uncle's face, though, Harry guessed that he was clearly aching to say quite a few things at the arsonist guest. Harry, however, had just reached the point in his thoughts where he was wondering whether this might explain some of the oddities in his life when Moody jerked him from his thoughts by roughly grabbing his sleeve. "Pack, and hurry, Potter. We have to leave within five minutes."

Harry hesitated a second, not exactly sure what he should do. Somehow, between the guest rough handling him, dropping a mysterious liquid down his throat, and setting his uncles furniture on fire made his brain come to the conclusion that leaving the house would be a rather bad idea. But despite himself, he tore for the cupboard under the stairs. He quickly consoled him with the thought that, whatever was going on around here today, leaving Privet Drive just had to be better than staying.

One of the advantages to not having much of anything was it didn't take long to pack. Harry's small trunk had little more than clothes in it; he had no keepsakes or mementos, for their wasn't much of anything of worth to remember for him. When he emerged from the cupboard, trunk in hand, he saw that Moody was lecturing to a purple-faced, still frozen Uncle Vernon. Harry had to admit, the idea of talking down to his uncle while immobile had a definite lure to it. However, just when it looked like Vernon's face was about to somehow go beyond even the shade of livid purple, Moody moved his wand and said something under his breath.

"Pay attention," Moody said in a soft growl as Vernon's face returned to normal. "You drifted off there, sir. I was just telling you that I'm taking Mr. Potter here away on a ten month tour of the Canadian northlands."

Harry blinked in surprise - where had that come from? Surely his uncle would laugh at those words, given that he certainly hadn't been drifting off in the slightest.

"You were?" Vernon asked in a confused. At this, Harry was confused as well; his uncle blustered and shouted when didn't understand something, and was acting quite unusual. "Oh, I mean, of course you were!" Vernon added. Harry blinked, amazed. Of course, then again, his uncle was probably willing to accept any excuse to get Harry out of the house for nearly a year. Either way, this was definitely one odd dream...


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: JK's Lawyers have insisted that I actually do not own Harry Potter. Jury's still out on any of the Weasleys, but I'm not holding my breath.

**Harry Potter and the Scepter of Fury**

Chapter 2: The Vigilant Escape

Three hours later, Harry was silently longing to be back at Privet drive, if only because there was a comfortable bed there for him to sleep. Though he didn't have a watch, Harry knew that it was quite a bit past his usual bedtime. He closed his eyes for a second, imagining what it would be like to just lay down and go to sleep...

"Open your eyes, Potter... we have to be alert! Constant Vigilance!"

Harry grumbled under his breath. So far, in the last three hours, they had done more than he could ever recall doing in an entire day: they briskly walked five miles, ducked into four consecutive alleyways, dove aboard a bus, jumped out of it as it was moving eight blocks later, doubled back on themselves at least six times, and even waded across a creek underneath a bridge that spanned it - all while he carried his small trunk. Right now, they were waiting in yet another alleyway that peeked out across some unidentifiable suburban neighborhood from behind a smelly pile of full trash bags. The strangest thing was, despite the massive amount of effort they'd spent, Harry would be surprised if they were more than ten miles from his house.

"There it is," Moody whispered, pointing to the other side of the adjoining street. The appearance of intense zeal on Alastor's face was quite surreal, considering he was fervently focused on a rather unremarkable small oak tree.

Harry was past caring what exactly it was they were looking for, though, and was beginning to wonder if he should just set back off to see if the Dursleys would take him back. "Well, let's go," he said in a dull voice, hoping this whole ordeal would be sorted out soon.

"Not now!" Moody quietly barked, whipping around to focus his intense gaze upon Harry. "Potter, there is a car coming, and we can't be seen. There could be dark wizards patrolling looking for any sign of us."

Harry silently moaned, and collapsed back against the brick wall, wondering what kind of dark wizard would be driving a Mini through the suburbs on a Saturday night. In fact, if wizards could drive minis, it begged the question why Moody couldn't drive one so that they could've simply ridden here instead of bruising themselves up for three hours. They waited there for nearly fifteen minutes, Harry growing steadily more bored, exasperated, and tired. First, for a series of cars ("Dark wizards, possibly," Moody whispered assuredly), then for a couple walking leisurely with a baby carriage as they enjoyed the night air ("Still could be dark wizards, and we don't know that there's a baby in there..." Moody hissed, looking warily at the stroller), and finally for a squirrel ("It's been looking at us a bit too often to be normal... possibly an animagus..." Moody said in an undertone)

By now, Harry had come to two conclusions: Dark Wizards could apparently be anywhere at any time for any reason, and this man should never be allowed to use the word 'normal' in conversation again. At last, Moody finally allowed them to walk across the street, though by the silent whispers of "Walk more casually, Potter!" and "Keep your eyes open," it was probably the most guarded street crossing he'd ever performed.

Understandably, when they finally arrived at the tree, which seemed to be their final destination of the horrendous journey, Harry was expecting something extravagant - why else would they have gone through this much trouble? Perhaps mythical treasure of dragon's gold buried beneath it, a wizard staff that glowed with raw magical energy - even something as simple as a scroll of parchment that, according to all the fantasy games Dudley played on his computer, littered the magical world.

"An... empty can of beer," Harry said, looking down at the ground behind the tree. It was official; this man was completely insane.

"Pick it up!" Moody insisted. Clearly he felt that a discarded can was a worthy prize for their efforts.

While at first Harry felt everything that had happened so far was all part of an extravagant dream, he now felt that the simplest explanation was that the man was just simply not right in the head. Deciding to just humor the man, he reached down, but as soon as his hand clasped around the tin, he felt something pulling hard on his stomach.

He began to scream, and his knuckles around the can and the handle of his trunk tightened white as he closed his eyes.

Several seconds later, he realized he was still screaming with his eyes shut - but that whatever it was that had happened to him was apparently already over.

Harry stopped screaming and opened his eyes - and had to immediately clear them as he didn't believe what he saw. He was in the countryside... as if he was suddenly plopped in the middle of a quaint farm. Chickens clucked from some unseen location, and when he turned around, he saw lights turning on in the most unusual of houses. It looked like it was built a room at a time, each thrown together in the oddest layout - and it looked to Harry as though it shouldn't even be able to stand upright without tipping over.

"Oh dear," a kind voice said. Harry finally noticed a short, plump, red-haired, middle-aged woman smiling at him. "Didn't mean for you to wake the kids up."

"Er... sorry," Harry said.

"No, no, it's alright," the woman, brushing it off warmly. "I'm Molly Weasley - and I thought you'd be here a few hours ago. We'd be glad to let you stay wi..."

That was all the further she got before a veritable flood of red haired boys emerged slowly from the house, all wearing pajamas.

"Mum, who is it?"

"Ron, go back to bed!" Mrs. Weasley put her hands on her hips and turned her back to Harry so that she could address the children.

"Is it George McGruder?"

"If it is, whatever he's said is a lie!"

"We had no idea those capsules would do that, honestly Mum."

"Fred, George, get back inside," Molly said with a touch of heat. Harry couldn't help but smile at the woman's smoldering ire - and how the children didn't seem to pay any attention to it.

"Then who is it?"

"And why are they here so late?"

"_That Is It_!" Molly said, blowing up. "All of you, Get Inside Now, or you'll be cleaning out the attic _all of tomorrow_!"

That seemed to do the trick - the gang of children quickly scampered inside, though Harry could swear he could hear one of the say "Quite unreasonable, honestly!"

"Sorry about that, dear," Molly said as she turned around, back to her sweet voice. "Though it is pretty late, and I imagine you'd like to get straight to bed..."

Harry couldn't help but agree - he didn't know how much longer he could lug around his trunk - and followed the short woman into the peculiar house, immediately smiling. While this house would earn nothing but scorn from the Dursleys, Harry already loved it. Within seconds, he could feel that this place was a home more than 10 years at Privet drive. And then he felt a bit of a pang in his stomach, and wished that it wasn't just a home, but his home. He would've given everything in his trunk to be one of the red-haired kids that had come out earlier.

The feeling intensified when Molly showed him up the stairs and into one of the rooms, flaring into the slightest bit of jealousy at the red-haired kid around his age snoring away on the bed. He shook his head, and reminded himself that all of this was a dream. A detailed and rather odd dream, but just a dream. After he stowed his trunk in the corner of the room, Harry curled up on the pile of blankets laid on the floor as a makeshift mattress, and quickly fell to sleep.

-----

Please review

JeanieBeanie33:

_Excellent! I've never read anything quite like it. And welcome back, by the way!_

Thank you! It's good to be back.

Tofurkey:

_Yay! Nicely done, Kevin. It was hilarious that Mad Eye Moody was the one to inform Harry of his magical abilities. Moody and the Durselys...hah. Moody's the best. I can't wait to see where you're going with this story. Don't you dare stop!_

Lol – I don't plan on stopping. You know, after this chapter, I'm just going to have to bring Moody back at some point.


	3. Chapter 3

NOTE:

Everyone, I had about 7 chapters done of this story, and had a full 7 year timeline roughly planned out. However, after two chapters I only had 3 reviews – and I was only lukewarm about the story to begin with.

So, for now, the story is on hold – probably until a bit after book 7 comes out (I think everyone right now is looking to read Book-7 finale fanfics.)

Anyway, while this story was getting cold, I wrote a parody called 'Miss Sue', and I'm currently working on two projects. The first, 'Doublebagged Redemption' is in production (2 chapters are currently up as of my writing this) – and I'm tinkering with a rough draft for a book 7.


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